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Drug czar's unique story: alcoholism

The Lowell Sun

Updated:
08/31/2014 06:36:09 AM EDT

By Katie Zezima

The Washington Post

LYNN -- America's top drug control official had a confession.

Michael Botticelli was seated on a tattered purple couch in an old Victorian here, just outside of Boston. Above his head was a photo of Al Pacino as a drug kingpin in "Scarface," and gathered around was a group of addicts who live together in the house for help and support. On one door hangs a black mailbox labeled "urine," where residents must drop samples for drug tests. Botticelli is listening to their stories of addiction and then offered this:

"I have my own criminal record," he said.

"Woo-hoo!" one man yelled after Botticelli's declaration. The crowd burst into applause.

The nation's acting drug czar has a substance abuse problem.

Botticelli, 56, is an alcoholic who has been sober for a quarter-century. He quit drinking after a series of events including a drunken-driving accident, waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed and a financial collapse that left him facing eviction.

Decades later, Botticelli is tasked with spearheading the Obama administration's drug policy, which is largely predicated around the idea of shifting people with addiction into treatment and support programs and away from the criminal justice system.

Botticelli's life story is the embodiment of the policy choice and one that he credits with saving his own life.

The approach at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has been, Botticelli said, a "very clear pivot to, kind of, really dealing with this as a public health-related issue of looking at prevention and treatment.

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" He now heads an office that has shifted away from a "war on drugs' footing to expanding treatment to those already addicted and preventing drug use through education.

Botticelli became the acting director of drug-control policy earlier this year, about a year and a half after he came to Washington to be former drug czar Gil Kerlikowske's deputy. The White House has not formally nominated him to take over the job permanently. It is a job that has previously been held by law enforcement officials, a military general and physicians. But for now, it is occupied by a recovering addict.

The nation is in the midst of an epidemic of prescription drug and heroin abuse. The number of drug overdose deaths increased by 118 percent nationwide from 1999 to 2011, most of it driven by powerful prescription opioids and a recent shift that many users are making away from prescription drugs to heroin, which can be cheaper and more accessible.

"Part of this is, 'How do we look at solutions that work for the entirety of the drug issue?'" he asked. "And not just the entirety of the drug issue, but the entirety of the population?"

Botticelli is trying to expand on some of the programs he used at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, where he was director of the state's bureau of substance abuse services. They include allowing police to carry naloxone -- a drug commonly known as Narcan that can reverse a heroin overdose -- and helping people who have completed treatment find stable housing and jobs.

Botticelli spends much of his time on the road, meeting with state and local officials. He visits treatment programs where he is, by all accounts, treated like a rock star by people with substance-abuse issues, a group he calls "my peeps." While Botticelli easily shares his struggles, those who worked with him said that he doesn't let it dictate policy.

"He was very good at separating his story from the work, which I think allowed him a little more objectivity," said Kevin Norton, chief executive of Lahey Health Behavioral Services in Massachusetts.

Botticelli drank in high school and college, and he once got fired from a bartending job after repeatedly telling the manager he couldn't work, only to show up as a patron. In the 1980s he moved to Boston, where he spent most of his time outside of work at the Club Cafe, a legendary Boston gay bar. Along with a group of regulars, Botticelli would stay well into the next morning, knocking back drinks and ridiculing people who were heading into the gym below the bar for an early workout.

"A lot of the center of gay life, particularly in urban areas, focused on bars," Botticelli said. "And so that's where you went to socialize, to meet people."

In May 1988, Botticelli was drunk when he left a Boston bar and drove west on the Massachusetts Turnpike. What happened next is hazy: He may have been reaching for a cigarette in the console of the car. Botticelli's car collided with a disabled truck. He remembers being placed on a stretcher and put in an ambulance.

Hours later he woke up in the hospital, handcuffed to a bed. A state trooper stood sentry in his room. Botticelli was lucky: His injuries consisted mainly of bumps and bruises. He was taken to the state police barracks, booked and had his license suspended.

"At some level I knew I had a problem," Botticelli said. "But at another level, because my license was taken away, I thought that my problems were solved. Because I wasn't drinking and driving anymore, so how could it really be an issue?"

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